King's Lynn Town 1 Peterborough Sports 2
Bank Holiday Monday saw King's Lynn and Peterborough Sports take on each other in a local derby. Both teams came into the game with good wins a couple of days before with Sports having beaten Buxton at home and Lynn beating Marine on the road.
There has been a sense of optimism around the Walks in preseason as they added a few good signings to a team that always had the ability to do better than scrape away from relegation last season and at the same time they have cleared out players who were not performing at the level. Therefore, I think that the expectation would have been the playoffs for Lynn. Conversely, Sports know that they are punching above their weight and will be happy to stay in the league for as long as possible.
Some of those expectations will have to be reassessed though if yesterday's game is anything to go by. Lynn were lacklustre and it was Sports who looked like the team who could be upwardly mobile.
It took Sports just three minutes to take the lead when Oisin Gallagher was given too much space and he found Dan Jarvis, who had also been given too much space for him to slot home and put the Turbines 1-0 up. It could have got worse soon after too when Sports were again given too much space on the left and Eliot Putman was denied by a fine save by Jones in the Lynn goal.
Lynn also had a few chances themselves to get back in the game, but it really was Sports who looked the most convincing. Josh Hmami should have done better when he had a chance in the 20th minute and a long throw to Omotoya Gold 2 minutes later forced a good save from Grook.
The teams went in at the break with Sports 1-0 up, but a slow start to the second half saw Lynn punished early on much in the same way as the opening exchanges of the first half had. Dion Sembie-Ferris this time found Jarvis in space as he grabbed his and Sports second.
The Sports goal seemed to finally wake Lynn up and Freddie Sass came close to pulling one back almost instantly when he hit the crossbar from range. However, the visitors remained resolute in defence. A defence that included Michael Gash, who to add insult to injury spent a good part of his career as a goal scoring centre forward at Lynn, but was playing centre half for Sports yesterday.
Lynn did finally pull one back when Bartosz Cybulski who had come on for Omotoya Gold knocked the ball down for Jonny Margetts, to pull a goal back with 8 minutes on the clock. The Linnets couldn't find an equaliser and it remains to be seen if this was a reality check on another false dawn or part of the Peterborough Sports hoodoo.
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